Italian Michelin star chef Marco Sacco (Credit: Marco Sacco’s Instagram)
A Michelin-starred chef has been jailed for almost three months and is forced to pay a £18,000 fine after making wedding guests ill with norovirus-infected clams.
Several wedding guests were taken to hospital after eating a risotto cooked by the Italian chef Marco Sacco at his glamorous Piccolo Lago di Verbania lake-side restaurant in 2021.
Only moments after the once-in-a-lifetime celebrations were over, guests complained of nausea, vomiting and stomach pain, with some even needing hospital treatment.
An Italian court has now accused the 59-year-old chef and restaurant manager Raffaella Marchetti of culpable negligence and trading harmful foodstuffs.
As a result, both now have to pay a £18,000 fine, including more than £6,800 to the wedding couple for ruining their special day, plus over £200 to each of the 53 guests.
The chef appeared in an Italian court after the wedding incident in 2021 (Credit: Marco Sacco’s Instagram)
They also have to pay more than £8,500 to cover their legal fees.
They were also jailed for two months and 20 days with a conditional suspension, Italian outlet La Repubblica said.
Italian paramilitary police Carabinieri said the clams imported from France had been infected with norovirus before Sacco unknowingly served them to the guests.
Highly contagious, norovirus is also known as the ‘winter vomiting bug’, which can be particularly dangerous to elderly, young children and those with other illnesses.
The spoiled clams were served raw to wedding guests as there were allegedly no indications on the sealed packaging that this was prohibited.
Sacco claimed he had served 3,000 similar dishes before without any issues.
Sacco told Il Gusto: ‘The menu included a risotto with borage and raw clams. We bought clams that can be eaten raw, as the manufacturer’s label shows and as shown in the product technical data sheet.
‘They are clams that I have been using since 2015. Since I have had this supplier I will have served over three thousand dishes like that.’
After news of the incident began spreading in Italy, many of the country’s diners may now have been put off from ordering fresh fish and seafood, including raw oysters, mussels and clams.
Igles Corelli, a chef who co-ordinates the Gambero Rosso Academy cooking school, called these foods ‘problematic’ and said consumers will now be wary of taking the risk by eating raw dishes, the Times reported.
He also said that Sacco should have known better by ‘cooking them at 64C or 65C so that they are purified but the taste of the sea remains.’
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